2.1 billion steps taken and the equivalent of 1.1 million meals donated (via donations to Feeding America).

That’s what thousands of Citizens colleagues have accomplished over the past three years during the company’s Step Up to Fight Hunger Challenge.

How are steps and meals correlated? Citizens set weekly step goals and when colleagues hit those milestones, the company would make a donation to Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization.

Headquartered in Rhode Island with over 1,200 bank branches in 14 states and the District of Columbia, Citizens originally launched this Challenge in 2020 with three main goals:

● Encourage physical activity and highlight the importance of health and wellbeing

● Fight hunger nationwide and within their own communities

● Connect colleagues across the country and enable everyone to actively participate

Learn how Citizens’ achieved these goals with their Step Up to Fight Hunger Challenge.

Citizens chose to align with their national partner, Feeding America, due to their strong national footprint and their track record of successfully distributing billions of meals. Citizens understood that a dynamic digital platform was then needed to make a seamless connection in mobilizing their colleagues and fighting hunger. Castlight’s offering was flexible to meet these needs and provide a gamified experience where participants could encourage, motivate, and celebrate one another in physical activities while growing social connections and camaraderie in healthy competition. 

The Challenge was such a success in 2020 that Citizens decided to do it again in 2021 and yet again in 2022. Ultimately, the Step Up to Fight Hunger Challenge provided the Citizens team with a way to give back to their community—which they consider one of their core values—participate in healthy activity, and connect with each other no matter where in the country they live. 

We are so proud to have the opportunity to support Citizens in this way and thrilled by the success of this wellbeing and philanthropic initiative. Go Citizens! 

Explore more details—including some impressive results!—about Citizens’ annual activity Challenge.